Resident Evil: Revelations 2 (Video Game)
Ted Hentschke
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Developed and published by Capcom
Rated M for Mature
Available on PS4, XB1 (reviewed), PC, PSVita, PS3, Xbox360
At the tender age of 15, I fell in love for the first time. As all first love, it was magical. Weekends were butterflies and giggles, and nights were spent in warm embrace. Resident Evil 4 got me, and as I felt the smooth contours of the Gamecube controller, it felt as though my hands were made for it. For years to come, I would return from time to time for a uniquely satisfying and pleasurable encounter, never replicated. But time wears on all love, and wrinkles become more pronounced, even on RE 4’s smooth and perfect skin. It is getting old, and it is time to move on.
I have spent more words in my reviews jerking off RE 4 than I have actually reviewing games, so I can understand if you think I’m being needlessly hyperbolic. Let me tell you a true story to explain my relationship with RE 4. The first time I played through it, I was playing through with a group of friends. I didn’t even own a Gamecube, so we played at my friend Paul’s house using my friend Travis’s copy. Travis is like a brother to me, and when his parents split he lived with me for a while so that he could keep attending school with his friends. Paul was the guy whose house you went to when you wanted to do drugs or hit on his overly flirtatious sister, so it is pretty accurate to say that bad things happened at Paul’s house. In all the time there, we had had sex with people’s girlfriends, gotten head from siblings, stolen drugs, and said shit we really should not have said. No matter what had happened, no one ever got into a fight, as La Casa De Paul was the Vegas of our teenage years: what happened there, stayed there. So while Travis slept, I was about 3 levels away from the end. I beat the game, so eager to see what happened, that I did not care at all that neither the console nor the game were mine. When Travis woke up, found I had beaten it and saved over his file (like the asshole I was), he punched me in the face. I, wielding the controller like a flail, struck him over the head with the jealous anger of a lover defending their territory. My mother was called, and Travis hid in the bathroom while my mother in her passive aggressive Minnesotan way told me that I was a son of a bitch. It took us a whole 3 hours to get over it, but Travis would never go on to beat Resident Evil 4. I would several times. It was worth it.
So when I say that this game takes major steps towards reclaiming the magic that made the fourth great, it means a lot. It is a tall order to reclaim the charm, tight gameplay, diverse settings, and overall excellent feel of RE 4, but I also think that it would be silly to just try to do the same thing again. I think at this point RE 4 has reached re-release saturation, and has been made available on two whole generations of consoles, the PC, the iOS, and the Zeebo. If you think a shitty mobile port of a game was the nail in the coffin, then you clearly forgot that the Zeebo exists, just like every other person on the planet. It will inevitably see a PS4/XB1 release, but the franchise needs to find a way forward aside from just reliving the glory days. Resident Evil 5 brought co-op to the franchise, which to me was a baffling step that for some reason has persisted not only in the series, but spread to other horror franchises. Resident Evil 6 brought intersecting timelines into the modern titles, something that had existed in the classic fixed camera Resident Evil games but had not persisted into the modern installments. Resident Evil: Revelations introduced a weapon part upgrade system and a stronger emphasis on ammo conservation and avoiding enemies.
The problem was, all of these games majorly failed in some area or another. Resident Evil 5 failed to offer satisfying rewards for challenges, favoring cutting to the end of chapter screen after a boss rather than giving you some kind of prize. It removed a lot of the exploration that made RE 4 so fun and replayable, and didn’t offer up an interesting enough deviation with the Uroboros virus. When you just rehash the same bag over the head chainsaw man, your creative drive is lacking. It was also kind of racist. People were upset about having a white man shooting black people in africa, so they created a black sidekick named Sheva. People were a bit up in arms when they found out she had an alternate costume in a leopard bikini and a necklace made of bones, but I was much more shocked when I reached the level of tribal enemies wearing masks and grass skirts and throwing spears. Their explanation in game for this was that the virus makes you devolve to your “more basic and primal nature.” It was a brilliant case study in how to not redress claims of racism, and if I wasn’t sure that the Japanese developers weren’t just Mr. Magoo style oblivious of just how offensive they were being, it would be an obvious and deliberate middle finger to social correctness and decency.
The RE 6 was a massive and confusing mess of a game, which managed to be massively large and universally unsatisfying at every turn. There were some cool moments, and it was interesting to see how the four stories came together over the game’s 20+ hours. I particularly liked the part where you live through a chemical attack in china and get to see everyone outside changing, but it didn’t make up for the overall lack of focus. Each team fights a different big baddie, and though these baddies sometimes intersect, they don’t get enough screen time to really be memorable on their own. It would have been far more satisfying if each had been working towards a universal goal, coming together in the end to fight a bad guy each in their own method, creating a whole picture of the fight only at the end.
I don’t have a lot to say about Revelations, as it was the one that most people liked the most out of the three and the one that I cared about the least. It isn’t a bad game, but it wasn’t anything special. The scanner device took way too long to equip, and aside from the odd segment where they take away your weapons, I never felt powerless. I didn’t have a terrible time playing it, but all of the elements fell short of the promise they were going for, not really feeling like a total horror/puzzle game. I also wasn’t a huge fan of the weapons part system, which replaced spending money to upgrade guns. It technically replaced the skill point system of RE 6, but to list everything that game did wrong that future series rightly abandoned would be better suited for a thesis on game design. The best way to summarize Revelations was that it fell short of being really good, but not because it did anything wrong.
Revelations 2 is not without its sins, but it commendably takes all of the positives from the previous titles and smashes them into one package. At just under 10 hours on the first playthrough, it is the shortest of the Resident Evil games, but each episode is tight and satisfying. I might be hard to remember, but Resident Evil has been broken up into levels since the fourth, and it is a decision that has never really made sense to me. The first few games took place in several static locations, requiring considerable backtracking and re-exploration to finish and find secrets, and did not utilize a level/chapter system. RE 4 was closer to this than the other modern titles, but certain levels did lock off or change areas. The fifth and sixth were straight shots: get through the arena, reach the end, move to the next one, the end. There was no guarantee that a level would end with a satisfying bang or be memorable. It was the direction the series had decided to go, but had yet to convincingly prove that this was a good decision.
The way that time is broken up and the story is told between chapters both justifies and maximises the potential of the newer style. I’m not saying that this justified the episodic release, that shit was stupid. By switching between Claire/Moira in the past and Barry/Natalia in the future, we get to first explore a new location, and then re-explore it after time and events have taken their tole. To further liven this up, certain locations are unlocked for Barry/Natalia by doing things in Claire/Moira’s campaign, and certain areas are only explorable by a specific pair. Branching paths add replayability, but even without those the game promises rewards for multiple runs. Aside from the slew of unlockable guns and costumes for completing certain win conditions such as beating the game in under 3 hours, there is some kind of interaction between enemies between chapters that has been hinted at. It will be cool to see what happens if I go through a chapter without collecting anything to see how it affects the future pair’s run. Even if it doesn’t the game is cut up into satisfying enough chunks with varying enough paths to make this retreading more enjoyable than arduous. Most importantly, it takes the concept of multiple timelines introduced in RE 6 and actually gives it reasonable meaning, culminating in a crossover boss fight for a satisfying conclusion.
As for the co-op gameplay introduced in the fifth game, people might be on the fence about this one. Personally, I did not like at first how only one character could fight. After getting used to it, I found that each unique duo was designed with a specific style in mind that worked well for what they were doing. Moira has more combat application than Natalia, which works with the buddy cop dynamic of Claire and Moira. Stunning enemies lines up for easy instant kills, and the crowbar’s ground attack is actually stronger than Claire’s ground stab. Sometimes moira will have to pry a door open while Claire defends, and even switching between the two it feels like a cooperative effort. As such, combat encounters are designed more head on. Your arsenal is weaker, requiring teamwork to overcome most encounters. This can be bit annoying while playing solo, but works well enough that it never took away from my experience.
Meanwhile, Natalia is totally combat ineffective, but has the ability to see enemies through walls. This gives Barry two roles: walking arsenal, and stealth kill executor. Once again, switching between the two can be a bit jarring, but it worked much better for me than the other duo. Using Natalia to scout out the path and then Barry to execute a lethal and well considered solution was deeply satisfying in a way not present in previous titles. Similarly, switching to Natalia to isolate weakpoints and exploiting them with Barry’s array of murdertools was simple and satisfying, adding a depth to combat not present in the previous titles. Puzzles would sometimes split the two, requiring Barry to cover Natalia from a distance. Some puzzles require you to figure out how to lure enemies from Natalia’s side to a clear to fire position for Barry, adding some puzzle depth to the combat. My sole criticism with the duo was the invisible enemies. As I said in my episode 3 review, I knew that at some point there would be a time where Natalia and Barry would be split, and that Natalia would have to sight the invisible enemies from a distance for Barry, and that this segment would be fucking horrendous. It was, and I believe my sentiment was that if all my fingers were the middle one, it would be insufficient to express my displeasure.
As for what Revelations brought to the table, Revelations 2 improves on the aspect that made that game unique. Weapons parts are rewarded for completing certain tasks, rewarding both exploration and quick thinking. One of the rarer weapons parts can be found for completing a gauntlet faster than required, and another for not destroying a specific trap. It all comes together pretty well, and though I miss the RE 4 merchant and his greating of “what are you boyin’,” it is a great implementation of the new system.
Similarly, the skill point system is brought back, but isn’t an intrusive part of the game. Acquired skills offer minor stat boosts or functionality, such as a skill that allows your primary character to shoot while playing as the secondary. Still, 30% extra damage while crouching is nice, but not necessary to get the full experience. BP (the currency used to buy skills) is also used to purchase unlockable missions, weapons, costumes, etc. When you unlock a certain bonus, it will always require a certain amount of Burton Points (what I call BP) to get it. It’s a bit annoying to have to buy your own unlocked collectibles, and considering the vast amount of shit there is to unlock in this game and how quickly you do so, it could easily be interpreted as an easy way to lengthen gameplay. While that may be so, the sheer amount of unlockables that modify the game ranging from new guns to invisible enemies makes the process easily accomplished by just seeing everything there is to offer.
As for what the disk version brings to the table, for the price of $40 you get all the episodes, two exclusive bonus episodes, Hunk and Albert Wesker as playable characters, the Throwback Map Pack, and the satisfying feel of a disk in your hands. With the digital copy, for the price of $25 you get the full campaign as well as the raid mode. If the question was if the features of the digital copy were worth 25$, the answer would be an emphatic yes. Even at $40, the content of just the digital package would be totally worth it. Given how much content modern games offer, the vast amount of extra content would make this game worth $60 in my book, though a bit of a stretch and probably with half a bump down in rating. However, the question is if the extra content on the disk is worth $15.
The two bonus episodes, “Little Miss” and “The Struggle”, each offer a unique narration and gameplay style. “Little Miss” tells the story of Natalia’s psychological struggle against the persona of Alex Wesker during her 6 months on the island. It is entirely a stealth segment where the co-op mechanics are almost entirely unnecessary, but the narrative depth it adds to the package can’t be ignored. It does a lot to add depth to the otherwise meager character of Natalia.
“The Struggle” tells the story of Moira’s time on the island with an old russian man for the 6 months before Barry came to rescue her. It is a combat segment, so it contrasts the Natalia section nicely, and adds the unique mechanic of a food system. Shooting animals nets you some amount of food and food is needed to continue when killed. Running out of food deletes your save, so the stakes are high in this chapter. The alternate character is an old russian man whose only inventory is a sniper rifle, so both characters are combat efficient in this chapter.
As unique as each chapter is, they just retread previous levels. No new arenas come into play, and no new weapons are presented. It is largely more of the same, and though it fleshes out the story nicely, its hard to really put a value on them. If you want to own the complete package with everything the game has to offer, you wouldn’t regret buying it. At the same time, not buying it won’t leave you with some massive deficit in the main game. As a gut reaction, I would not say that the bonus content is worth $15, but it is unique enough that if I had bought it I wouldn’t be upset.
Even if the bonus content is slightly less than the $15 asking price, it is still an amazing package. I know that people that don’t like horror games as much as us here at Dread Central might not really get how staggering it is that Resident Evil is managing to get better this far into its downslide, or how refined the concepts of the game are, but this chapter is an absolute must for all horror fans. The swapping timelines offer a ton of flavor, even with a limited enemy pool, and the plethora of content can keep you entertained for at least half a dozen playthroughs. The extra modes are icing on an already delicious cake, and I mean that fudge icing that you can eat by itself by the spoonful. Buy this game, love this game, and love me for telling you to buy it.
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Resident Evil: Revelations 2 - Complete and Total Package
Categorized:Horror Gaming Reviews
